The other side of a crime
by sevenofmine
Summary: Another serial killer, who now kills marines, has started murdering in Washington. A new case for our favourite NCIS team, and several new characters, who might be our perp, appear. I'd like you to guess who our killer is while you read this story. WARNING! This story is not intended to be read by young children and it provides a great amount of scientific detail. No TIVA.
1. Chapter 1

**This story should not be read by fanfiction-readers under the age of 16, to be on the safe side, you should be older than 18. The following story is very detailled and requires a basic knowledge of science. It goes very much into detail of chemistry and criminalistics.**

**Furthermore, I would like to say that no TIVA happens in here. However, Tony and Ziva go having a drink at a bar together (in order to later find a body), and if you don't understand that 'having a drink together' does not mean 'having a romantic relationship', you are not old enough to read this story, sorry. But for the rest of you, you are welcome.**

**You might also notice how much effort I put into this story and it would be nice of you to appreciate this. I also tried to make it most realistic. Any relation to people, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended.**

Chapter 1

It took me three hours to drive through the city and buy the components that are necessary. Right now, the small bottles are standing on the desk in my basement. It is typical that people like me bride their stuff in the cellar, but I doubt that I am typical for that because usually I do so in a first floor – but not today. First of all, I heat the distilled water in a beaker. To avoid boiling retardation – the effect when vapor bubbles from the bottom of the container rise suddenly to the top and carry away large amounts of water – I use boiling stones, but also glass rod to stir the liquid. While it starts bubbling, I mix the phtalic anhydride and the resorcinol and powder them along with zinc chloride. I melt it until it takes a red color, which became a bit too dark for my test, but it will do the job. I pour some of the sodium hydroxide solution – available in every supermarket, along with most of the other components – to the melted powder and stir it with the glass rod I take from the beaker filled with water. After I filled my 'slurry' into the water, I add enough sodium hydroxide solution until it becomes a constantly green liquid. I boil it again and control my filtering equipment. I add diluted sulfuric acid – also easy to get, although usually less than 1 molar – and I filter the yellow 'liquid' into the same flask. I put the filter cake on a new dish and regard the residue. I sigh and walk over to my preheated table oven and let it dry by 373 K. Tomorrow, it will be ready. I set my alarm clock and walk over to the bag I have already packed in advance. I control everything again, my bottle of hydrochloric acid, my instruments, my gloves and the many other things that I will need.

I turn back to my table where another 'experiment' is running as well. The white precipitation can already be seen at the bottom of the beaker, in which I detained some sodium hydroxide solution to the butyro-1,4-lactone. Saponification sounds so easy in the books but takes its time…

"Where's McGee?" Tony asked when he entered the office and sat down behind his desk.

"Seeing the doc. He called in earlier," Ziva answered and continued writing a report which she should have sent away yesterday already.

"We got a case," Gibbs came in carrying his typical morning coffee and grabbing his jacket and rucksack. The two agents did the same and followed him to the elevator. "Where's McGee?"

"At the medic," Ziva answered. "He wrote you both an SMS and a mail."

"I got a new cell."

"Again?" Tony asked but then became quiet when receiving another slap on the back of his head.

"Body was found at half past eight this morning by the caretaker. This house is unoccupied, like most of the other buildings in this street," the local police officer in charge explained.

"I wonder why," Tony mentioned while he took a look around. He didn't want to live here either. The houses were very old and right at the end of the street was a farm with acres and animals that you could smell up to here. The street itself was in a bad condition and he doubted that any of the few street lamps worked.

"I think he used the seclusion for his insanity," the officer muttered and led the agents inside.

"What do you mean, 'insanity'?" Ziva wanted to know.

"Wait and see." The officer took them upstairs where they could already see the CSU at work, gathering as many evidences as possible.

Tony entered the wooden floor right behind Ziva while his eyes slowly got used to the window as only light source. Hastily, he pulled over shoe covers and put on latex gloves. Inside the room it looked like a huge mess. Local police was walking around, along with the Crime Scene Unit's forensic scientists. _That's preservation of evidence_, Tony thought and inspected the surroundings.

The body was to be found right in the middle of the wood-paneled room. It was a young woman who he would have guessed in her mid-twenties. She was naked and her clothes lay neatly folded next to her. Around the corpse, a round puddle of blood has been formed which has partly dried into the wood, turning it into a dark brown color.

"Well, I think someone wanted to take the work away from me," Ducky said. Tony turned around, he hadn't heard the pathologist arrive with his assistance. Together, both scientists walked over the dead woman.

"Everyone who does not have a specific task right now: leave the room, please," Gibbs shouted and slowly, the crowd began to dissolve and only left the three NCIS agents, the pathologist and Mr. Palmer, and three forensic scientists at the location.

"Oh dear," Ducky muttered and regarded the body. "Rigor mortis and the body temperature indicate that the body has been dead for longer than seven hours by now. Livoris can be found on the back which means that the poor lady was murdered lying already in this position. Identification by fingerprints will not be very useful as our murderer cut into the fingertips. I propose DNA or dental identification methods."

"Actually I'd like you to comment the cause of death," Gibbs said and looked over Ducky's shoulder. Indeed, the body itself seemed far more interesting than its arrangement. The corpse lay straight, arms right next to the upper part of the body. The chest was cut open with a sharp knife – if not to say scalpel – from each shoulder to the upper mid of the breasts. From there, it formed a Y-cut until beneath the belly button. The triangular parts of the skin were folded to the outside and most tissue of the nervous and muscular system were pushed aside or cut out, setting free a full view on the rips, chest, inner organs and partly even the spinal column. The organs, fully visible as most of the blood has drained out through deep cuts functioning like pipes at the height of the kidney, were mostly disconnected from the veins and arteries. It seemed as if they had been taken out, regarded closely, pressed together and then put back to where they belonged – like taking out several pieces of a puzzle, examining if they were still in a good condition and then placing them back to restore the jigsaw's picture.

"It looks as if someone has tried to perform an autopsy by himself. The most distraught fact is that – due to the huge amount of blood loss – the victim must have been alive at least during the first five to ten minutes beginning with setting the first cut, which would be the Y-shaped one on the upper part of her body," Ducky finally concluded.

"But if she was still alive, why didn't she defend herself, after all, she has had military training," Tony said and pointed at the folded uniform next to the body while he took pictures from every angle of the crime scene.

"This is an interesting question, Tony, just give me a minute to prove my theory," the pathologist said and took a closer look at the body. "Just as I thought," he then muttered. "Do you see this?" he turned to Mr. Palmer and pointed at a tiny dot at the left side right under the chest.

"Injection marks. Do you mean 4-hydroxy butane acid was injected into her body?" Mr. Palmer asked and the pathologist just nodded.

"Of course I'll need Abby to confirm that."

"Can you translate that into English, Duck?" Gibbs asked nerved.

"4-hydroxy butane is a drug usually used in cases including violating and rape. At the autopsy, I will have to do smears of the vagina. Searching the floor for semen would also be helpful," he said with a grim face. Such cases were always tragic and if he wa correct, it also increased the possibility of a serial killer.

"UV-light will be necessary anyway," Ziva suddenly said and turned around. She pointed at the wall. "It looks like something is on this wall."

Gibbs nodded at Tony and he shooed the three forensic scientists down so that one returned with a UV-lamp and black paper to seal the window and darken the room. The agents gathered around the CSU guy and waited until he turned on the device. What they saw was not what they expected. He waved around the lamp but everywhere it seemed the same. The whole room was lightening in bright colors.

"Turn it off," Gibbs ordered and they were covered in darkness again until Ziva found the light switch.

"What the hell was this?" Tony asked surprised.

"We'll know when this was examined," the forensic scientist said and put a probe of the wooden wall into a small flask and did that for each wall and the floor. "But I think that whole room was covered with fluorescence which lights like that under black light. It was probably used to cover up the real blood distributed during the killing process."

"But did the perp paint _the whole _room with this fluorescence?" Ziva wanted to know.

"I doubt that-" he answered when suddenly the door was opened and the local police officer in command entered with something in a plastic tag.

"We found that downstairs in the bathroom. I thought you might want to have it," he said and handed it over to Gibbs who examined it.

"Seems to be an explosive device. This small plastic bag was torn apart very quickly, forcing its content to splatter in a close area."

"Looks like we got our way of distribution," the scientist mentioned.

"But if he built this thing and left fluorescence all over the room – then he knew exactly what he was doing," Tony said.

"Not only this. A quick test of the sink downstairs marked residues of hydrochloric and some other acids, strong enough to destroy DNA," the police officer added.

"Chlorine in certain compounds is able to destroy DNA sequences, or react with them. I assume that the murderer used this to destroy probable residues of his own DNA on this explosive device and the crime scene itself. Your scientist will have to search for alcohol on the device itself, which can wipe away DNA and makes identification of our perp impossible. But even with these evidences, it doesn't have to be necessary that our murderer is an expert of forensics. Things like that can already be found in the internet," the CSU scientist explained.

"But still, it takes some fantasy to perform an autopsy on a living body and make UV-lamps unusable by distributing fluorescence all over the crime scene," the officer said.

"I'd be very interested in how he got fluorescence. Buying it in large quantities is obtrusive," Gibbs said.

"Perhaps he produced it himself, in smaller amounts, but over a long time. A scene like this has to be planned by long-hand, he probably knew exactly what to do this evening," Ziva spoke out loudly what they all thought.

"And I doubt that this will be the last crime scene looking like this," Gibbs muttered and looked at the mess in the room.

**Still, reviews would be nice.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Abbs, what have you got?" Gibbs asked when he entered Abby's office and immediately turned off the music which was again set to maximal volume.

"A headache and too much of Caf-Pow?" she answered and looked at the three empty paper cups on the evidence table. She was standing at the computer on whose screen a DNA identification was running.

"Is that our victims DNA?"

"Yes, her test didn't show any result on the East coast's naval officers, so the West Coast's are still running in the background."

"Did the murderer leave any traces of DNA?" Gibbs asked surprised and Abby already pushed him to the table in the mid of the lab where all kinds of beakers and dishes were lying.

"Although Ducky proved that the victim was sexually abused, he couldn't find any semen. It might be that he ejaculated somewhere in the room, but the fluorescence all over the place makes UV-light unusable. Have you thought about that, Gibbs, this is awful? How crazy are the perps these days?"

"Abbs…" Gibbs reminded her to her work. Like always, he was gave along the impression that he was under pressure of time.

"Alright…the CSU gave me some probes they took from the walls and floors of the crime scene. I analyzed them and the forensic guy was right. It is indeed fluorescence, but it isn't very pure nor is it homogeneous."

"What?"

"It means that the perpetrator produced it himself and also in small amounts. Probably because that was easier and doesn't attract any attention. So this also means that this crime was planned a long time before and was exactly done in the way he had figured out." She moved to her left and held up the 'explosive device' which was brought down to single pieces. "This one was a bit harder. He used a usual instruction of a simple explosive device, as you and I can find in the internet. It also shows that this isn't quite his league. He's more focused on the chemical – but also physical – part of the crime. And with 'physical' I mean physics, not the…other physical thing…he did to her…and-"

"Abbs," the boss reminded her to get to the point.

"Okay…let's say he knows mixing chemicals. The bomb's manufacture itself is simple but it's usually used with nails and sharp kinds of stuff. For this one, he built a ball – like a balloon – but with a more solid material. He placed the explosive device itself inside this 'ball' so that when it exploded, the impact would tear the 'ball' apart and spray the liquid all over the room. Now you see this," she pointed to the rests of the device, "and you know the room."

"The bomb is very small," Gibbs commented.

"Exactly," Abby answered, put the evidence plastic bag back and walked over to her computer where she put a 3D-view of the room on the big screen. "I examined the explosion and the liquid inside the bomb was just enough to fill most parts of the room. Actually, it was exactly the right amount to be sure that all important parts of the room were covered, which excludes the corners and the edges of the ceiling."

"Does that mean he measured the room and calculated how much of this fluoro-stuff he had to produce?"

"As I said, he seemed to be quite good at physics."

"Thanks, Abbs," Gibbs said and wanted to go but Abby held him back.

"I got more," she said and pointed to a small beaker filled with a transparent liquid. "Hydrochloric acid. Alone, it's a bit hard to destroy evidence, but one part of it is chlorine…which can be very useful."

"Abbs!"

"Okay, I explain that simply," she answered slowly. "Chlorine can – under specific circumstances, in this case certain compounds with it – react with DNA itself and therefore has the quality to make it unusable for later identification. He spilled some liquids in the sink and the floors in the house in case that he left any traces. Although I take along that he used gloves and shoe covers, and probably even hair covers, he is very, very careful."

"You want to tell me that he knows what he's doing," Gibbs summed up what he had heard too often before.

"I want to say that he probably studied chemistry or biochemistry, perhaps something including physics. Nevertheless, he has a certain interest in bodies and their interior," Abby said with a sad look on her face. She always seemed a bit too emotional concerning her work.

"Thank you," Gibbs said and left the lab and walked down another floor deeper into the earth to visit his pathologist in the autopsy room. "Duck, tell me something."

"I just finished x-raying the set of teeth so that Abby should be able to do a dental recognition in case that the DNA analysis will be unsuccessful."

"She's probably a naval officer, we have all their DNA's," Gibbs reminded him but joined Ducky and Mr. Palmer at the table.

"Luckily – under that unlucky circumstanced – the murderer took away some work from me. Weighing the organs could be performed faster than usual because I didn't have to set the Y-cut."

"Did he know how to do it?"

"Let me say it so: If you read a hundred medical books and then were told to do an autopsy, it would look like this," he said and pointed on the corpse which seemed even paler now due to the bright light.

"You mean he doesn't have any experience?"

"I wouldn't call it 'none at all'. The cuts are precise and his hands did not shake, but he didn't have the right tools to do it professionally."

"For example this," Mr. Palmer said and held up a device Gibbs could hardly name. "When a body is opened and we want to access certain organs, it holds the rips and sometimes also the chest bones apart. He didn't have this so that the bones are still in order."

"I think that he only had two or three different types of scalpels, tweezers and perhaps he even used crucible tongs. The nervous system tissue was carelessly pushed apart so that the organs were recognizable. He took them out and hell knows what he did with them. However, he put them back wherever they belonged. More fascinating is this," the pathologist said and picked the big, red heart with his gloved hands. He turned it around and Gibbs saw something that could not be right.

"Is there something missing?" he asked.

Ducky nodded. "A part of the 'backside' of the heart was cut out. I couldn't find it in the body so I assume he kept it. The same happened with a small piece of the stomach which is the reason for that its former content has flown into the upper body half. We had to get it out by suction before we could start examining the rest." He pointed to a testing tube with a yellow-brown-green liquid in which solid, unidentifiable 'things' were wobbling around.

Gibbs wished he would not have looked up. "Abby said she was being raped?"

"Unfortunately yes. Her vagina stained red and she had been still alive. But we could not find any semen so I assume he wore a condone – which is very unusual for rape criminals."

"Thanks, Ducky."

"One more thing, Gibbs: The way it looks, he has planned this very precisely. It wasn't a spontaneous act and therefore I think not the only one. He'll do it again – please find him before he gets this chance."

"I'll do my best, Duck. Like always," Gibbs said shortly and left the autopsy hall.

I wash my hand with water, soap and special disinfection solution. It takes me at least five minutes before my hands are clean, but I know that they will never be clean again. I have a look at my hands under UV-light and notice the yellow-greenish lightening spots that can also be found on my working place, my lab kit and the glass devices which I already cleaned so eagerly. However, I walk upstairs and see that the light in the living room is switched off. In the darkness, I take the staircase, avoiding the one that makes a sound and step onto the first floor. I open the door to the bedroom but I see that he isn't asleep yet.

He looks up from his book and smiles. "I've been waiting for you, honey."

"I've had work to do," I explain. "It took me a bit longer than expected."

"CSU called and said they found blood all over the place," McGee said when he put down the phone.

"How were they able to figure that out? The whole damn place was glowing," Tony asked confused.

"They came back today with another set of UV-lights and searched the abandoned house with using another wave length of the light. Which means that the whole room was lighted up, but for example semen and blood could be seen as dark dots – well in this case they found a huge amount of blood all around the body but this proves that the woman was killed where she was found."

"Concerning her, Abby just sent me the lab results," Ziva told the boss who stood silently in front of the plasma screen watching the crime scene photos. "She says that her DNA matches Naval Corporal Diana Sullivan." She put her driver license and naval ID onto the scene and Gibbs regarded the calmly. "Age 23, not married, no problems at work and she came home from a mission in Afghanistan last week. Her parents both died but she has a brother, Marc."

"You and Tony go talk with him. Although it seems like a usual rape, we cannot exclude a proper motive," the boss said and drank the last bit of his coffee before he turned and through the paper cup into the bin. "McGee, we're gonna drive to her naval office. She was stationed in the naval hospital in Norfolk since Monday."

Although the team went after all traces they could see, none of them led to a clue concerning the solution of the case. It was already evening when Tony and Ziva came home from a journey halfway through all cities in DC's vicinity where they had visited, visiting the brother and boyfriend of the victim, as well as her current workplace. But nowhere they found out something of interest and it was evident that they were soon going to lose the case on the police or FBI as they usually handled serial killers. However, as long as the victim stayed a naval officer, they were in charge.

"You planned something for tonight?" Tony asked when Ziva had packed up her thing and had already turned to leave.

"No, why?" she wanted to know and waited for him to catch up. Together they walked to the elevator.

"I thought…we could…you and me…could going to…drink something together?" Tony muttered in a voice that was very unusual for him.

Ziva first thought about teasing him but then decided to nod, "I know a great pub in North town."

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	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

It took me some time to get the right things for my next 'attack'. I have a plan I follow, not strictly, but still it helps me like a guideline. I have typed everything, of course not on a computer that was ever connected to the internet.

I am not foolish, actually I studied what I do – just the exact opposite. However, I need a new victim and where would I better chase than where everyone is – the internet. I double click the triangular desktop icon. I don't have usual ones but downloaded several some months ago and since then I'm using flags of the UFP for my browser or the Klingon symbol for LateX.

Tor opens and loads, it talks to me "We now have enough directory information to build circuits." The letters appear black on white. Quickly it rises to 80%: "Connecting to the Tor network," 85%, 90%: "Establishing a Tor circuit", "Tor has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like client functionality is working," and finally 100% with the simple message: "Bootstrapped 100%: Done".

[The interface between hardware and software is the operating system which sets, for example, the hardware to predefined values. This is then called bootstrapping. The operating system also is the console driver, the command interpreter and the file, resource and memory manager, etc.]

I sigh and click to the Sci-Fi warning icon which opens HexChat. Tor sends the request of information from the web through a network of relays all over the globe. The reason of the name 'onion routers' is simple: this process employs encryption in a multi-layered manner and is censorship-resistant, also because some bridge relays are being kept hidden.

As the internet address of sender, which is me, and recipient, a certain website, are both not in cleartext while 'on their way', someone noticing this information cannot directly identify both ends. The recipient also thinks that the last Tor node is the originator of the request.

* * *

"I would have never thought to get you drunk," Tony smiled when he helped Ziva out of door of the bar they had visited.

"I'm not drunk…just slightly intoxicated," she complained and try to walk on her own, but stumbled and fell into his arms.

"Better we get a taxi," Tony mentioned and pulled out his phone.

"The central station is only five hundred yards away, there's a taxi stand," Ziva muttered and Tony put his mobile back into his pocket.

"Then let me help you there," he said and arm in arm, they staggered forwards. It was pretty dark and when they came around the corner, they had to walk through a very tiny street to which the back doors of the pubs in downtown lead to. According to this, it was also filled with container that stank from all kind of biological wastes. A cat hunted from the left to the right, probably after a mouse, but still shrieking Ziva nearly to death.

They walked on but suddenly Ziva stopped, her Mossad sense alerts on highest level. "Do you smell that?"

"Smell what – decomposition?"

"Of a body," Ziva said and turned around. And there she was. A young lady, sitting against a trash container, her blonde hair hanging down on her shoulders, her clothes missing and her eyes closed. "Oh my god," Ziva muttered and went closer. All of sudden, all her senses have come back and she was fully aware of what was happening around her.

"I'll call police," Tony said.

"I don't think so…" Ziva stood up and looked at the trash container. Right on the top of a plastic sack were rags, torn apart but still recognizable: a military uniform of the US Navy.

There are four categories of traces, the real trace, illusion trace, the fake or simulated trace and the missing trace. When I remove the clothes of her body that is still warm and deposit them in the trash container right next to me, I leave a real trace. They will find the uniform and they will use it to identify the body and clarify whose jurisdiction the murder is.

I take out the burnt down cigarette of a plastic bag and place it next to the body. This is an illusion trace, a physical change in the environment or the room, which you first think to be linked to the crime although it isn't, what you find out within the ongoing investigation. Soon they find out that this isn't my cigarette. As this is a simulated trace as well, there remains another category: the missing trace. This will be the missing of traces, like my DNA, my fingerprints or the murder weapon.

That's the point where we encounter 'my friend', as Sweeney Todd nicely emphasized in the movie. I take out my scalpel and place it at her beautiful neck. How easy it is to cut into warm flesh. It's not like butter, as people might read in books about crazy psychopaths or mad and socially expulsed persons. It is more like cutting a successfully baked turkey at Christmas Eve.

As soon as you've cut the first layer of the skin, the rest is easy although you should not reduce much of the pressure. I cut from the shoulders to the middle of her breasts and down to her belly button in order to perform the very famous Y-cut. Precision is harder to maintain throughout the cut than you think. But my hands don't tremble anymore, although I wish I could have properly studied this art. She doesn't bleed anymore, the body has given up healing itself, she has finally died.

Intoxication, that will be the official declaration by the Forensic scientists. Although the liquid she drank hadn't been transparent as lead nitrate usually is. It didn't even smell awkward. I had surprised her with a fascinating drink, a slightly yellow liquid with yellow crystals floating around when you shake it. The 'crystals' happened because the concentration of the salt wasn't high enough to settle down at the bottom of the bottle as precipitation.

I had filled lead-(II)-nitrate, highly toxic and beside effects such as skin irritation or corrosive attitudes, it can also lead to infertility, into a bottle where it had reacted with potassium iodide. When you take highly concentrated solutions, a yellow precipitation is formed and when you solutions are unsaturated, no visible change in colour is to be seen.

But with a concentration with 10-2 mol/l, you get these nicely shimmering crystals that do not look like a hazardous solution that can lead to death quite quickly – when you drink enough of it. Not that I had given her this pure solutions. That would taste awful, but it you try something new, how are you supposed to know what it tastes like? However, 10-2 mol/l isn't an alien way to describe any scientific term which takes ages to calculate.

It just means that in one litre, you can find 10-2 mol of the soluted salt, while one mol is nothing more than 6.022*10-23 particles, in this case lead nitrate or potassium iodide molecules.

My hands are feeling the warmth of the blood that is running down her body. My hydrophobic gloves allow me to continue the process. I cut away the nervous system and push it aside. I want to see the organs, I want to see what holds us together, what makes us live, what makes us breathe and eat and pee.

Finally, I hold her heart in my hand and I smell the lovely odour of blood – it is so much better than the smell of urine coming from the victim's trousers. When a person dies, the sphincter muscle relaxes.

However, I put the heart back into the body itself. This would be quite a direct proof for murder, I think. I wonder if seeing a person's interior organs counts as fulfilment of the criteria of a crime. English is such an inaccurate language, certain names I haven't heard in ages cross my mind. At least, I never leave indications at crime. Do or do not, there is not try. I smile at myself. How I hated these movies but how I loved Yoda talking. It reminds me to some people talking English.

I put the knife into a plastic bag and then into my sports bag. Carefully, I regard my work. In addition to the Y- or V-cut, I sliced open her eye lids and the blood looks like something black and very viscous. Now, what do we have? Any form traces, like fingerprints, shoe prints or drops of blood?

I did not spill any of the dark red liquid, I wear shoes without labels, those soles cannot be traced as different producers buy soles at the very same plant in any third world country. And of course, I am not stupid enough to leave any fingerprints nor hair strands. It is an erroneous belief that with any strand of hair you are able to determine the DNA sequence of an individual.

Did I leave any physical traces? Well, of course I did. Forensics will be very keen on finding the actual cause of death when the pathologist excluded bleeding to death. Then they will match the blood group of the victim with the one in the military data bank to be sure that it is the same person. I think this time it won't be necessary for them to ask specialists of forensic odontology.

What about situation traces? Blood sprinkled here, blood dropped there. The form of it will be examined on their own, indicating that the victim didn't move. But the situation as such will appear like a usual murder – well, except for that they now have an indication for a beginning serial killer.

Subject traces are too risky. It designates objects that the killer brings to a crime scene and leaves there, like the 'fluorescence bomb' at the last scene. I hope that Forensics has found out that the substance wasn't completely made by myself. Producing fluorescence in such amounts is hardly possible in a usual lab – especially one in the basement.

It might sound absurd but checking all these things is very important to me as I do not want to leave any more hints than I have to at a crime scene. I mean, the agents aren't stupid. I help them a lot by showing them what I know and by letting them easily identify the victims. I think this is the least I can do.

Imagine a missing person who cannot be found because her corpse has never been identified. Therefore I choose people from the military, their career and medical records are stored in the huge data banks of the US.

Now, what I left is an indication ring, certain aspects pointing at me: possession of the shoes which have the same sole as worn at the crime scene, possession of a scalpel like the one used to kill this victim, knowledge to successfully mix highly toxic solutions which usually lead to death, and an – excuse me for arrogance – quick and intelligent mind which makes me have a preference for Sherlock Holmes novels. Perhaps I should one day kill to honour him and see if clever NCIS finds out.

I take off my gloves and put them into a plastic bag before I put on new ones. I have a last look at the pieces of heart and stomach which I cut out and put into another plastic bag, I don't want to ruin my nice, cheap sports bag which I know close. I turn around although I already know that I am alone.

There're no surveillance or traffic cameras in this street, nor the streets close to this one, I checked very thoroughly. Anonymity is the most important thing in our daily lives now-a-days and although we call ourselves 'free' and 'independent', we are being observed not only by our own government but they exchange their data more freely than you think with other state's secret services.

We're more enslaved than we think and that is the reason why I didn't necessarily develop paranoia but in every case became more careful since I discovered the depth of the world wide web.

I look at my work and sigh. That poor girl. I take my bag and quickly walk away. There were usually no people in the small street to which most of the pub's backdoors lead. I need places where I cannot be disturbed because I need to be concentrated and calm when I want to consider any possible trace I could accidentally leave.

I cannot risk any mistakes. Forensics are good and can get you even when you've not been careless. That's why my heart still races with the speed of light while being at a crime scene. At least, I don't tremble anymore. That had been my very first problem.

Slowly, I disappear into darkness, leaving behind an act of terror and violence. What would a psychiatrist think? What would he suggest as reason for my behaviour if he knew me? I'm not traumatized, I didn't have a difficult childhood, I grew up in a normal social level, I graduated from school and university, I got a job.

What is so unusual about me? I even find a boyfriend eventually, although it took some time. Someone who loves me and someone who I love. I can indeed feel love, and pain and hatred and still I am able to do such things. Some murders are easy, some are – I have to admit – not that easy.

When they scream, I don't feel guilt, but fear that anyone could have heard them. I always fear I forget something or that I am discovered – or that I accidentally hint something. I am scared because I am not sure if I can really act that well...

**Please review.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was early afternoon and after having returned from the crime scene, the three agents were working at their desk. Of course, Tony and Ziva hadn't told anything about the circumstances they found the body what annoyed McGee even more than the fact that he usually was the last one to find out anything about them. However, he felt like their relationship – or whatever they were or were not having – was intentionally held back from him.

When Gibbs entered the office, with a new paper cup of coffee in his right hand, Tony just put down the phone and approached his boos with a 'I know that you won't like what I'm going to tell you'-look.

"What?" Gibbs asked, already sensing this.

"FBI just called. They want to be part of this investigation."

"Why?"

"They connected these two murders to an incident in Sacramento five years ago. A corpse had been found by the caretaker in an abandoned house. The young, female victim's chest was sliced open, her organs separated from the body and a smiley face drawn to the wall of the room."

"Sounds like someone was imitating Red John from this TV series on CBS," McGee mentioned.

"Yeah, that's what FBI thought as well but they noticed that the woman had a deep cut in their back. Turns out that one and a half year later a man was found dead in New York. He had been killed in Bronx, a Red John smiley was found again, also the cut in the back but parts of heart and stomach missing. These two pieces had been found with a third victim in Germany," Tony said, looking at his notes on a piece of paper.

"Germany?" Ziva asked surprised and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Oberhausen, West of Germany. A male victim found in his house. Sliced open, organs extracted, cut in the back, parts of heart and stomach were cut out but lay next to the pieces of the former victim in front of him. Since then FBI and German Kripo declared these cases to be the work of a serial killer. They first weren't sure about the victim we found in that empty house because the cut in the back was missing. Now, they read the preliminary report of Ducky-"

"Who found a deep cut in the back of the victim," Gibbs finished the sentence. "They sent some fibbies here?"

"Yeah, some guys from Serial Killers Department will arrive shortly. They also bring their own forensic scientist. I doubt that Abby will be amused," Tony explained.

"Great," Gibbs commented and stood up. He wanted to bring Abby the bad news himself.

* * *

"And this is Mr. Mass spectrograph. Do not touch it without my permission, he gets angry very quickly," Abby instructed and the female forensic scientist in front of her sighed.

"Abby...I don't want to take away any work from you. FBI just sent me to help you, to support you," she answered. Her name was Diana Mathews, she had been working for the FBI's labs for nearly twenty years now and therefore was about fifty years old. Despite her age, she had a confident appearance and seemed to be physically perfectly fit. She had long, blonde hair and wore normal jeans and t-shirt under her lab coat.

Abby smiled and turned back to the computer, sensing the glance of the other woman staring at the monitor and the back of her head. "This is the first victim. She was found in an abandoned house. Although the killer made her body hard to identify, he left her military uniform there."

"What makes you so sure that it's a guy?"

"We found indications for rape at our first crime scene."

"Including semen?"

"No, he probably wore a condone."

"Then what makes you think it was sexual abuse? A woman could have faked it," she said and her black pupils stared down at Abby who was a few inches smaller.

"I don't know. I just assumed...isn't that irrelevant right now? I mean, I can't always say he/she/it when talking about the killer," she said and turned back to the monitor. "However, he/she/it left her uniform there."

"Perhaps he wanted her to be identified. He always liked to show off," Dr. Mathews explained, stressing the word 'he'. "The first crime scene might have been a copy cat murder of a TV show's villain and we first thought that a crazy guy had taken him as his role model."

"But the second murder changed your opinion, why?"

"The second victim had the same smiley face but we left details out when talking to the media. First of all the fact that the killer did an autopsy on the New York-victim. That parts of his body were missing and that fingertips and mouth were vitriolised by 2-molar sulphuric acid."

"Oh my God," Abby muttered silently looking at the desk. She could hardly imagine a human being capable of doing such things. What was wrong with the people? Why did they all turn megalomaniac or insane – or both?

"That made dactyloscopy and dental recognition useless. The woman's ID and driver's licenses were burnt and her face sliced open. But before her death, the killer let her write her name on the walls of the room. That made identification easier. And it showed us another important thing: The killer knew exactly what he was doing. We consulted forensic psychologists and they were sure that it was a serial killer who just started. Everything matched, and the killer seemed to know some things about chemistry and investigations. Either he has been adding some strings to his bones from time to time or he is a either a law enforcement officer or a scientist."

"You think a police man would be able to do so?" Abby asked, her eyes widenend.

"I've worked on some cases. The problem is that the DNA of police men and officers are stored in the databanks. That means when we find a DNA trace and it's one of our men, we assume that he accidentally contaminated the crime scene and we do not take along that he _did_ the crime scene," Doctor Mathews explained.

Abby just nodded. This case was becoming less and less nice. How could a man stand over a woman he just abused and killed...all the blood flowing over his hands and dropping onto the ground. She shook her head. She didn't want to think about it, not at all.

"So what shall we focus on now?" Diana Mathews asked.

"I had started to reconstruct the second murder case," Abby explained and loaded the file into her program. "First, we found a burnt cigarette and thought it might match our killer as the victim was non-smoker. It then seemed that the cigarette had been deliberately placed there to confuse us."

"The killer is not stupid," Diana said and smiled slightly.

"No, he isn't. Toxicological results show that the victim was poisoned with a lead nitrate solution which is, first of all, not easy to obtain, but on the other side it seems that this solution was more or less saturated."

"Which means that the killer offered his victim as drink which had no precipitation."

"Of course not, it would have made the woman suspicious. As I assume he mixed the solution himself, he had to know which amount of salt and water he could use."

"He definitely has a scientific background knowledge," Diana admitted. "This is becoming really interesting."

"Oh, yes," Abby said, not so confidential. "However, this is what I imagined the scene to look like," she added and started the program. A badly programmed person dragged another one out of a door and dumped her on the floor. He kneed down and performed his satanic ritual. Suddenly, Mathews' mobile phone rang.

"I'm so sorry," she said and had a look at the display. "It's my boyfriend. We're planning to get married, I gotta take this call," she excused herself and quickly left the lab.

Abby raised an eyebrow and turned back at the screen. Then you should better hurry at your age, she thought and sadly noticed that she hasn't met Mr. Right either.

* * *

It was late tonight when I got home. My boyfriend was cooking spaghetti with my favourite sauce and is nearly finished now that I have changed my clothes.

"Can you set up the table?" he asks and I do so, looking into the fridge what kind of beverages we have left.

"I gotta go shopping tomorrow," I remark when I see that we hardly have coke and whine left.

"How was your work today?" he asks when he decants the noodles onto the plates.

"Well, quite fascinating. FBI is now in contact with NCIS," I explained and transport the plates to the dining table where we both sit down. "And yours?"

"Well, definitely not that interesting. We lost another homicide case to the drug unit. Now, tell me, how exactly does the new cooperation between the two Service look like? Have you been asked to work with that Abby Sciuto yet?"

**Any new ideas who our killer might be? :)**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was one day later that Agents DiNozzo and McGee paid a visit at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's building in the Northern part of the city. As soon as they stepped through the glass doors on the ground floor, they noticed how unwelcomed they were. The head of investigation, Officer McGuire, greeted them and led them first to his office so that the NCIS agents could hand him their files, including preliminary autopsy and crime scene reports.

"Will we get to see the reports of the last incidents?" Tony asked when they took the elevator down to the basement.

"I'll sent you edited versions via e-mail," McGuire answered when they entered the corridor. There were labs to both sides and they went straight ahead.

"I thought we would be helping _each other_ in this case?"

"We are...helping you. This is our guy and our case. We've been searching him for five years now."

Tony and McGee both sighed. There was no point in arguing with a fibbie.

"I'll bring you to the lab of our forensic scientists. I asked Dr. Kramer to occupy with your latest cases. Since Dr. Mathews is the only one who had worked on this case before and she's now at the NCIS, we don't have a specialist here. Dr. Kramer will show you the crime scene reconstructions of the three previous cases," McGuire said when they reached a door with 'Forensic Science Department 47 – Ballistics, Toxicology and Reconstruction' written on the heavy door. "Now, excuse me, I have a conference waiting for me." With those words, he left the agents in the grey-white corridor.

"He was really nice," Tony commented sarcastically and pushed open the door. One of the lab coat-men came over and Tony showed his badge.

"Oh, alright. I'll bring you to Dr. Kramer. Just please put on these safety glasses," the man whose name 'Sean Gold' was written on the coat said. Tony and McGee both put on the glasses and followed the doctor. The laboratory was bigger than the one Abby was working in and a lot more people seemed to usually be here. Right now, it was lunch time and only few workers were standing or sitting at the tables and desks.

"Ben," Gold said to a young man working at one of the tables. In front of him was a computer monitor showing what he was looking at through an electron microscope. Dr. Kramer turned around and shook the agents' hands. "You must be Special Agents DiNozzo and McGee then. I'm Dr. Ben Krämer," he explained.

"I'm gonna show you the crime scene reconstructions, just let me save these pretty pictures," he said and turned back to the computer.

"What exactly are you working at?" McGee asked interested. As soon as he saw a computer, his Geek-senses were on high alert.

"We've found a bullet at a crime scene somewhere downtown. I'm trying to determine type, calibre, producer and kind of the weapon. I think that, whoever fired this weapon, didn't know much about them. So we're searching an amateur who probably has never shot before."

"What makes you think that?" Tony asked and looked at the tiny golden bullet in the petri dish.

"This bullet was constructed for short range pistols," Dr. Kramer explained and picked up the bullet with his gloved hands. "Do you see the deformation? But I cannot determine any deformation [Züge&Felder] on the outside. It means that the muzzle of the weapon had no stria which would make the bullet spin around itself which helps stabilising the flight path of the projectile. The igniter wasn't burnt correctly as well which leads me to the conclusion that this projectile wasn't fired with the correct weapon. This is pretty hard to achieve as different projectiles fit into different pistols or revolvers. However, that there were no rills in the muzzle itself makes me wonder if this was a deer rifle. These do not make such deformations as they're normally loaded with lead shot."

"So the perpetrator shot a normal projectile with a sporting gun? What's so wrong with that?" Tony wanted to know.

"The rills in the muzzle are stabilizing the flight path in rifles. Even if you saw off the half of the muzzle, it would be stupid to shot with a normal projectile," Kramer said and put back the bullet into the petri dish. "However, you came here for the crime scene reconstruction and not for some boring lectures about ballistics," he said and led them into an office nearby the lab where they sat down in front of a computer.

It took the forensic scientist a little while to start the program and load the reconstruction.

"This is the first crime scene. The body was found by the caretaker of an abandoned building. When you entered the room, the first thing you saw was the Red John smiley face." The computer animation showed a squared room with only a few furniture at the walls. Everything was outlined and drawn by simple lines. The virtual door opened and the wall in opposite to the door could be seen, where a crime scene photo of the smiley was placed.

"The perp took his three middle fingers, dipped it into the blood of the victim and drew the smiley. Blood traces on the floor indicated that he walked several times from the body to the wall in order to complete this drawing." The program reset and showed the act of the murder.

"Most probable is the theory that he carried her body into the room while she was unconscious, toxicologists determined an anesthetic drug in her blood which was probably produced by the perp himself. But at this time they didn't think that he possessed advanced knowledge of medicine and chemistry. However, she was still alive when he cut her open and she probably regained consciousness and suffered until her quick death."

The brutality he described could hardly be seen on the lousy reconstruction of the crime on the computer. "Most of the struggles you see on the monitor did probably happen. We found fibres of his and her clothes all over the room and used them to refine this animation," Kramer said before he halted the program, showing a plotted dummy at the wall, one arm imposed to draw the bloody face.

"How could fibres help you to determine their actions?" Tony asked surprised.

"The Locard principle. Nothing can touch without leaving traces on the other thing. Taking for example the fact that you are sitting on these chairs. The cushion now contains fibres of your clothes and on your trousers I can now find fibres of this cushion," he said. "The only thing we can definitely say about this perp is that he came prepared. The crime scene hardly left any traces the Sacramento CBI could use. He left no blood, no DNA. The fibres indicated that he was wearing a coat and shoe and head covers, as well as gloves, as they found slightest traces of latex."

"Okay, so he didn't do a mistake at the first crime scene? What about the other two? Can we see them as well?" McGee demanded.

Dr. Kramer nodded. "At all three crime scenes, we found traces of latex, but no actual clues to his identity. As soon as FBI took over this case, they consulted forensic psychiatrists and they immediately said that this killer must be intellectual and well educated. He has psychopathic and sociopathic characteristics and knows exactly what he is doing. You can read the details in the files attached to the email which Officer McGuire sent you." He then opened the file of the next crime scene.

"This one was found in Bronx, New York. It was found by a prostitute who had gotten lost in her delirium. However, she had been sober enough to call 911. This is when CBU became sure that our perp has a scientific job. Her ID were burnt, fingertips and teeth made unrecognisable by high-proof acid. However, he didn't want her to die without being identified so he let her write her own name in blood on the floor."

"Did the psychiatrists say something about this sadistic game?"

"Yes, that it wasn't sadistic at all. He was very clear-minded, he likes to show-off but on the other hand he wants that everything goes as planned – that his victim was identified. He wants to keep control of the game and he doesn't want to lose it under any circumstances. Perhaps he likes the role as a dominator or perhaps that's part of his game as well."

"You using a lot of 'perhaps' and 'probably'," McGee noted.

"Chemistry and Physics might be exact sciences, but deriving you conclusions from it leaves room for human mistakes," Dr. Kramer answered with a serious face. He sighed. "The third victim," he began and opened another file.

"This one is a bit tricky. It was a male victim which led to the false conclusion it might be a copycat but now we assume that – even if the victims are sexually abused – he doesn't get off with only women. Another theory is that the perpetuator is a woman who only simulated traces of rape to imitate Red John in her first two cases. Then he did this again with victim number 4 because he wanted to let us know it was him," he said and pointed at the computer screen.

"It is new that the victim was found in his own house. He let the murder in. As far as we know, the man was bisexual so this doesn't give us any hint to the murderer's sex. However, he lived in a lower-social-level district in which the killer didn't attract any attention – nor did the victim's final screams," Dr. Kramer explained and looked up before he started the animation.

Scientific assistant Gold was standing on the doorstep. "What can I do for you, Sean?" Kramer asked.

"I'm sorry, the analysed hair strands are ready. I took them out of the spectrograph and labelled them. You can proceed with them as soon as you're finished here. I'm going over to the 'hall' and get new tissue samples," he explained and left.

"I think he should have applied for a job in the other basement under us. He loves autopsies and is always keen on getting their probes as soon as possible," Dr. Kramer sighed and pressed the 'play'-button for the animation. The two men, the victim drawn with turquoise lines and the murderer in glowing orange, entered the room. The killer suddenly took out a hammer and hit the other man on the back of his head. He went down and fell onto the glass coffee table which broke down. The murderer rolled him onto his back, took out a bottle of high-molar liquid and occupied with fingertips and teeth of the victim.

"Couldn't the victim be also identified by his hair and blood?" McGee asked.

"Yes, but his DNA was in no data bank. In Germany, they only have hair and blood DNA information from people who had an encounter with law before. The only possibilities would have been fingerprints – which is used for the passport – and teeth recognition, because dental records exist from far more persons there in comparison with the USA."

"You aren't from here either, are you, Dr. Kramer? You have a British accent," Tony commented.

"Indeed, I'm from Germany and that's one aspect why I have been summoned to work on this case. Another one is that at the time the third victim was found, I had been on holidays in Berlin, the German capital."

"Is it close to this city...Oberhausen?"

"No, completely the other side of the country. However, I only found out about this reading the news."

"Was this victim in Germany raped as well?" Tony asked.

"Traces of latex were found on his skin and the body has been found naked. But whatever the perp did, he did it after he killed the victim," Dr. Kramer explained. "I'll send these files to your forensic scientist, Dr. Sciuto, alright? Then she can have a look at it, as well. And Dr. Mathews is cooperating with her, isn't she?"

"Yes, it seems that FBI is really wanting to get this perp as soon as possible," Tony said when they all stood up. "Do you know something we don't know? Like if he killed an FBI agent which is off-records?"

"No, I'm sorry. I have to fight for every piece of information on this case here as well. I just got enough information to reconstruct the crimes. So, if you have any more questions...?"

Tony and McGee shook hands with Dr. Kramer and then left the office. "At least one cooperating FBI-guy," Tony muttered when they entered the elevator again.

"Have you seen this guy Gold's stare when he was allowed to collect samples from autopsy? This was creepy," McGee said and shook his head. "But what have we learnt?"

"That our perp's intelligent? Like...a little McKill?" Tony laughed.

"Oh, shut up."

**Please continue reviewing (and not always the same persons).**


	6. Chapter 6

**The last chapter:**

**I will probably write a similar story within the next three months, either about NCIS or The Mentalist. I will probably write it in German and publish it both here and on fanfiktion .de. If you are interested (and don't speak German), PM me as soon as I publish this story. But this might take a while due to the amount of work I have to do for my studies... Today I declared biology to be a pseudo-science, but simply letters in completely confusing orders...^^ :P (DNA sequencing)**

Chapter 6

When Dr. Mathews entered Abby's lab the same day at eight o'clock in the morning, she found the forensic scientist already at the desk in her office, together with the pathologist's assistant Mr. Palmer.

"Morning," the Doctor from the FBI greeted when the automatic door slid open.

She was greeted back and Palmer excused himself and returned to the lower basement. "Jimmy just brought us some new samples," Abby explained and stood up, carrying a tablet with several Eppis and petri dishes to the bigger table in the first half of her lab.

"I thought they already determined cause of death as poisoning," she answered surprised and followed her.

"Yes, but Ducky noticed that the fingernails were stained and wants us to perform some drug tests. Just the usual ones so he got us some hair samples. Will you prepare the ones from the front head and the side and I'll take the back and the upper half?" Abby asked and sorted the petri dishes that showed strands of the former beautifully brown hair of the woman who was now lying dead on a cold and sterilised table in the morgue.

"Well, yes," Mathews answered surprised and took the samples.

"You can work over there. Everything you need is either in the cupboards under the tables or in the cupboard over there," Abby said and pointed next to the fridge.

"Alright. Are you always working that intensively? I mean, one or two samples of different regions of the head would be enough to give a toxicological conclusion."

"I'm better thorough because I don't want anything unsure when this perp's standing in court," Abby answered and already turned around to occupy with her strands of hair which she prepared for a look under the light microscope.

Tony and McGee just arrived in time at NCIS headquarters to grab their rucksacks and head to a new crime scene. "Our perp again?" Tony asked surprised when they entered the elevator.

"Probably not. A marine got killed in a bar fight and we have to find out if this was an accident or murder," Ziva explained.

"Isn't that business of the local police?" McGee wanted to know.

"Not when the marine received death threatens a week before," Gibbs said when the elevator door opened again.

Mr. Palmer was cleaning the autopsy table when Dr. Mallard returned earlier than expected from his lunch break. He sat down at his computer and started printing the autopsy reports from the previous victims.

"Would you like to have a look at them as well?" he finally asked and handed them over to Mr. Palmer.

"The FBI psychologists declared him as absolutely sane. How can a man who kills other people for simply autopsy and cut them open be diagnosed as sane?" Palmer asked after a while when he had enough stared at the photos of corpses lying in the puddle of their blood, organs lying randomly in their upper body half.

"Our perpetuator appears to have a clear scheme of how he proceeds. The crime scenes were never a mess, no DNA was ever found either. The first two scenes consisted of copy cat-ing the Red John killer from the TV series The Mentalist. But since the second murder, he added a personal note."

"So he was still learning with the first two murders? And then he started with his own...well, creation."

"Exactly. Unfortunately, he sees it as a creation, a masterpiece as well. He probably identifies with Red John...did you watch the TV Series, Mr Palmer?" Ducky asked and looked up to his assistant who then grabbed a chair and sat down next to him.

"I used to. Up to the sixth season because then the Red John killer was caught in the 8th episode or so."

"Then what can you tell me about him, because I have not been very successful in my research," Ducky admitted that he did not know about a topic.

Palmer sighed. "Well," he began, "Red John looks at himself like a showman. He needs a stage and people to look up to him, he draws attention to himself and therefore risks a lot from time to time. About his personality, little is known, but he likes classical music by Bach and sees a justification for his actions in the poem 'The Tyger' by William Blake."

"Oh, I think that tells us a lot, Mr Palmer. Coincidentally, I am well aware of latest poetry."

"Well, I wouldn't call it 'latest' poetry..." Palmer said but Ducky ignored him while he already continued talking, "the poem begins with describing the tiger, the most cruel being that God could create and-"

"Come to a conclusion, Ducky," Gibbs said the moment that he entered the Autopsy room.

"Our perpetuator seems to identify himself with the tiger in William Blake's poem 'The Tyger' in which he asks if the tiger and the lamb have both been created equally by God and if therefore the tiger really is as evil as he is seen, only because he was created like this."

"Like The Master in Doctor Who, who was only evil because another man planted eternal drum beats in his head," Palmer added with a bride smile but was again ignored by both Gibbs and Ducky.

"What can you tell me that the other psychologists couldn't?"

"Whoever he or she is, he probably had a normal childhood but still had a lot of wishes he couldn't fulfil. Perhaps he was loved by parents but rather wanted the love of a partner."

"He's single and so he started killing?" Gibbs challenged.

"I don't think he is a single anymore. I think he has a love partner but I do not know if he or she help him or her with the murders or isn't even aware of them. I think that the murderer has a normal social life, but has spent a lot of time as an outcast of society, perhaps only because he knows a lot about science."

"His job is a scientific one."

"And I think that he liked to expand this knowledge of science all his life because he found it fascinating. Perhaps he wanted to study medicine because he found the topic interesting but didn't get a place at university because of his marks."

"Really?" Gibbs doubted.

"Motivations are most always very simple ones. Sometimes money, enviousness, hatred...but scientific curiosity is a completely different matter. He is intelligent, but has very low sociopathic or psychopathic characteristics but the evil side attracts him."

"Like a Darth Vader," Mr Palmer muttered. Nobody laughed.

"Thanks, Ducky," Gibbs finally said and left the room without another word.

It was a late evening and Tony had bought some fast food to eat in his living room in front of his TV screen and didn't think that the case would be resolved tonight. It was a phone call by agent Fornell who said that Dean Oswald was found dead in his house. It wouldn't have been suspicious if it had not been the same way of killing of the serial murderer. But obviously, he saw that the net had become smaller. Dean Oswald, the boyfriend of forensic scientist Ben Kramer, had been strangulated during a sex game, then most of his body parts had been cut off. Every trace of Dr. Kramer was missing – along with his clothes, ID and check cars and everything else that belonged to him.

It was not another eighteen months that Tony wasted a second thought on this strange case of a serial killing forensic scientist, until his vacation in the South of Mexico. It had been a revival-vacation, he had wanted to revisit the local bar where Kate had won a wet t-shirt contest. But there he stared at the guy sitting in one corner of the bar. Tony sighed deeply, he had drunken a few beers already, but then decided to go for it.

"Special Agent DiNozzo," Dr. Kramer said surprised and greeted him with a friendly nod.

"So that's where a very wanted serial killer retreats to? The hot beach of Mexico's South," Tony said and finished his beer.

"I know what you might think. But since the murder of my boyfriend, I haven't killed anyone."

"Not been in the mood."

"You know why I did what I did?"

"I'm listening."

"Curiosity," Dr Kramer said with a slight smile. He continued drinking his vodka, the resumed, "when I had been a kid, I grew up in Germany. I was a huge football fan and also in a team. And when I was about fifteen, sixteen, another boy, who was two years younger than me, he cut himself. His arm looked very horrible and of course we gave him our support. But I had been curious why he, or anyone, would do such things to his body. So I started myself, not much, but once in a while, just to find out what he had been experiencing. And I understood him. I stopped, why should I cut myself? But I do understand why other people do."

"Nice story," Tony said unimpressed and ordered another round of drinks for them.

"I had always been fascinated with crime and actually I had wanted to become a pathologist. But as a forensic scientist, I came in touch with so many cruel stories and I wanted to know what drove people so far... well, and the rest of the story...you know."

"So you did it for research? Your own curiosity?"

Dr Kramer nodded.

"Well, that's different to the guys I usually arrest. Unfortunately, the extradition from Mexico to the US is hell. Don't you regret what you have done?"

"I know what I have done. I have always chosen people without family, people with few friends. Which doesn't make my crimes any less cruel, but now I am here in Mexico, working as a forensic scientist...well, it's rather a drug scientist here. You know how Mexico is. But do you know what you can learn from this case, Agent DiNozzo?"

Tony raised his eyebrow.

"Curiosity is sometimes good. Although it has bad consequences, but you shouldn't care. And you know what? Aren't you curious why Ari Haswari killed your beloved Agent Todd?"

**Oh, and please don't forget to review. I tried to put into this story a lot of what I have learnt so far and probably similar stories of mine will appear ;)**


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